The sixth test flight of the largest rocket to ever fly will feature another attempt at catching the Super Heavy booster and returning it to the launchpad.
SpaceX caught its Super Heavy booster in midair using a pair of metal “chopstick” arms, the first time such a maneuver has been successfully completed. Credit: SpaceX
The sixth test flight of Starship — the largest and most powerful rocket to ever fly — will launch no earlier than 5 p.m. EST on Monday, November 18, SpaceX said Wednesday.
The previous test flight of Starship, which SpaceX also refers to simply as “Ship,” and the Super Heavy booster resulted in the unprecedented catch of Super Heavy using a pair of metal “chopstick” arms.
The maneuver, which returned the booster to the same pad from which it launched, demonstrated its reusability, a key feature that SpaceX expects will allow it to reduce launch turnaround time from months to days, or even hours. NASA has estimated Starship will require about 15 flights before a human landing system (HLS) variant of the spacecraft is ready to land astronauts on the moon. That mission, Artemis 3, is scheduled for 2026.
The Starship upper stage, meanwhile, made a second controlled reentry and splashdown after being lost or exploding during its first three test missions.
During Flight 6, SpaceX will again attempt to pluck Super Heavy from the sky after the booster hurtles toward Earth at supersonic speeds, generating a sonic boom. Using data from the previous flight, the company said it added redundant hardware to the rocket’s propulsion systems and sped up the process of unloading propellant after the catch, among other upgrades. If the attempt needs to be called off, Super Heavy will instead splash down in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Starship upper stage will follow the same path as the previous mission. But this time SpaceX will try to perform an in-flight burn with one of its six Raptor engines. The goal is to show how Ship could perform a deorbit burn, which will be required before it fuels up at an on-orbit depot for missions to the moon and, potentially, Mars.
Also unique to Flight 6, SpaceX will remove some of Ship’s heat shield tiles in locations where “catch-enabling hardware” could be incorporated on future models. The spacecraft will reenter the atmosphere at a higher angle of attack, putting stress on the new configuration to gauge how it might perform on later tests.
If Ship launches on Nov. 18, the mission would come just over a month after Flight 5 — easily the quickest turnaround between Starship flights.
SpaceX has publicly criticized the FAA for the pace of its license modification approval process, to which Administrator Mike Whitaker responded during a hearing, calling the timelines “necessary” for safety. The agency also levied more than $630,000 in fines against SpaceX for alleged violations of its previous launch licenses, which CEO Elon Musk vowed to fight in court.
SpaceX and Musk, who in September said President Joe Biden-appointed Whitaker “should resign,” were showered with praise by President-elect Donald Trump during a post-election day speech Wednesday.
A NASA official during a recent interview revealed the space agency expects SpaceX to perform an on-orbit propellant transfer demonstration using two Starships in March, a major step toward Musk’s ambitions of landing humans on the moon — and beyond.
Editor’s note: This article first appeared on FLYING.
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